When I assured him that his request should be faithfully complied with, the contracted brow relaxed; the expression of anxiety vanished; and in its place a smile of satisfaction and perfect happiness slowly spread itself over the pinched and pallid features, where, the next moment, it was indelibly fixed by the hand of death.
I have dwelt at such length upon this introductory episode of my story that I must now “turn the hands up and make sail” in earnest, for we have a voyage of many thousands of miles before us; and, like all thorough seamen, having once shipped for the voyage, we are impatience personified until the anchor is atrip, the canvas sheeted home, the watch set, and the lively little barkie dashing merrily away over the heaving billows, her snowy canvas gleaming in the setting sun, and the cliffs of Old England fast fading into purple mist astern.
Volume One—Chapter Three.
Bob’s Proposition.
After we had reverently laid the Spaniard to rest in his alien grave, I gave my friend Bob a full and accurate account of all that had passed, showing him at the same time the copious notes I had, at the earliest opportunity, jotted down to assist and refresh my memory in case I should ever find myself in a position to seek the hidden treasure.
But it is now necessary that I should introduce the dramatis persona who have already cast their shadows on the curtain; and this I will do with all possible brevity.
“Place aux dames.” Ada Collingwood, my darling and only sister, was at this time approaching her seventeenth year, and was a dainty specimen of lovely girlhood just budding into still lovelier womanhood. Her figure was petite, promising in due time to develop into the most faultless perfection of shape: and her laughing blue eyes and rich profusion of silky golden hair set off to perfection a face which, perhaps, no one would have dreamed of calling beautiful, any more than they would have dreamed of denying that it was charmingly piquant, and irresistibly pretty. Her temper was equable; she was gifted with a rich flow of animal spirits, and a keen perception of the ludicrous, which would have upset the gravity of the most confirmed hypochondriac.
Nevertheless, if occasion required it, her merry ringing laugh could be hushed, her joyous elasticity of movement could be subdued, and no one better than she could assume the rôle of the sick-nurse, or the tender and sympathising confidante of distress. And lastly, she adored, with a blind unreasoning idolatry for which there was no excuse, your humble servant, her unworthy brother.